Remus listened to the noise of claws on the window catchment and drew further into the dark corner by the stairs. There were a couple loud barks, and Sirius crawled through the window on all fours, turning from dog to boy when he saw that Remus hadn't transformed, his fingernails scratching against the damp floorboards of the shack. He was wearing three jumpers layered on top of one another and Muggle jeans which Remus was sure belonged to James. He shook water from his hair like a dog and then stumbled dizzily into the wall.

"Hey Moony," he said, grinning. "Hope you're doing okay. I didn't see you in the dark there. Very terrifying. Spooky."

Remus glared at him. "You should stay in your animal form. If I turn into a wolf right now I am going to rip your face off." Sirius had a habit of tempting fate on full moon nights. Remus was concerned he intended to do so again, now that Peter and James weren't here to stop him. He remembered Peter comparing Sirius to a cyclone.

"Sounds like fun," Sirius said. He pulled his wand out of his pants pocket and lit the lamp swinging above their heads. A cold yellow light colored their faces. "You look awful, Remus."

Remus wondered for a fleeting second if Sirius wanted to die. But he couldn't, of course- you could practically hear the blood pounding in his heart a mile away, see his ferocious eyes gleaming from across a globe, brilliant and alive. Remus thought people who wanted to die had blank stares.

"Put that light out," he said to Sirius. "Locals will see. They'll think there's a cult here or something torturing people."

"Scary," Sirius said, still smiling. He waved his wand again with a muttered spell and curtains swept across the windows. He backed away a few paces from Remus. "You're trembling. When will it happen, do you think? Do you want to go outside before it starts?"

Remus shrugged. His body was shaking and he was beginning to see things moving in the corners of his eyes that he couldn't usually see. That meant things were close, maybe five, ten minutes—but with the curtains drawn it was impossible to say when the moon would find him. "Soon, and I don't know," he said.

"Well, we can have something to warm up while we wait then," Sirius said, as if he'd been waiting for this. "Accio Firewhisky."

"Sirius, christ."

Sirius smiled and snatched the bottle from the air as it hurtled through a broken window toward him.

"You can't drink," Remus said, staring up at Sirius in horror. "You have to keep your head."

"I won't drink much. But it's a party. You and me and the moon." Sirius tipped the bottle back and took several gulps that seemed to eat up an eternity. The heavy sharp smell of alcohol hit Remus's nose like a truck. Sirius inhaled deeply through his nose when he was done. His boots dripped mud on the rug.

"Sirius, this just seems really bad."

"It's not bad at all. Much faster than butterbeer. Do you want some?"

"No. This seems like a bad idea, Sirius. If you want to drink you should go somewhere else," Remus said. He was worried about Sirius's judgement in human sober form. A drunk dog was much more risky.

Sirius frowned and looked from the Firewhisky to Remus. He waved his wand and it Vanished in his hand. "I'll be good," he said. His voice was low and calm and serenely unconvincing.

"You're going to get yourself killed. And me. Please take this seriously, Sirius."

"Haha, you said-"

"Sirius."

"I'm sorry. I just thought—we never have any time together without Peter or someone hanging around. I was celebrating."

Remus looked up at Sirius suddenly, the realization hitting him like a coarse brick. "You've never been around when I've actually transformed, have you?"

"You're always already...you know... when we show up. James seems to think it's safe. I say, if I'm a dog, it shouldn't matter, should it? I thought I'd get a head start this time. James and Peter didn't notice."

"You've never seen it happen, then—the blood or anything."

"No. There's blood?"

"Yes. There's blood, Sirius." Remus's brow was furrowed and his voice sounded biting and sarcastic even to himself. He had never noticed—in the haze that his mind succumbed to after each moon—that his friends were always there just after his transformation. That explained why Sirius seemed to have no understanding of the pain and the gory spectacle that entailed. He had no idea if it would even be safe or not for them to be around him while he transformed. Sirius looked at him with a vacant excited smile, as if he didn't realize—or did not care about—the danger he was in. His wet hair dripped down across the purple bulky jumper he was wearing. Remus felt a sudden annoyance rise like a buoy long submerged in silt. He stood too quickly, swinging the heavy wool blankets around his shoulders, and lurched forward, shoving Sirius back into the next room. "If you want to court danger this isn't the time," he snapped, more hoarsely than he had anticipated.

Sirius looked taken aback. "Moony," he said. "Moony, I just wanted to see what it was like. You always seem so terrified and I wanted to know-"

"I'm not here as a monster for you to play chicken with."

"I'm not playing chicken," Sirius exclaimed. He adjusted his jumpers indignantly.

"You're here alone, you're drunk-"

"I had one sip, Remus-"

"If you lead me into town—even near town—I'm insensible when I'm a wolf, I'll kill anyone I meet, I'm dangerous, I'm not myself."

Black blank eyes stared at him. "I won't do anything to harm you, Remus," Sirius said. It sounded too careful, the consonants too enunciated. It deepened Remus's suspicion.

"No, of course not. Not as long as it's so fun to have a monster for a friend, who you release into the night and whose life you take responsibility for, to make you feel brave-"

"This isn't-"

"Oh, yes it is. You don't really have any respect for me!" Remus had never been this hysterical. He supposed that there had always been something between him and this outburst and now—with the moon bright somewhere behind the clouds and no James to stop him or Peter to distract and annoy him, all his thoughts were pouring, venomous, from him in a toxic blast. He knew he'd regret it. "You never have had any respect for me. I'm the interesting monster who gives you something to talk about to James, to Peter, to conspire over, to share like one of James' magazines-"

"We don't-"

"I'm another sort of dirty little secret—James loves secrets so much, so do you—but you like people to wonder about them, you go around school talking about my furry little problem-"

Sirius opened his mouth to protest, but Remus cut him off with a frustrated noise that turned, somewhere in the middle, into an inhuman shout and yelp. It ripped through the air like glass in thin skin. As soon as it was out of him, he clapped his hands over his mouth and sunk into a ball beneath the blankets. He felt Sirius watching him still—just standing there—and rage boiled inside him, mingled with fear.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm a mess. It's me, it's me."

Sirius looked baffled and overwhelmed. "Maybe a bit, mate," he said. "I mean, it's also me. You're right to be angry."

"You shouldn't have come," he moaned. "I'm sorry." Another wail, which was a lot like a whimper now.

Sirius was quiet for a second—perhaps to see if Remus was quite done. "I didn't want you to be on your own," he said.

"I can be on my own for tonight, I can be on my own-"

Sirius was beside him—still human, unsafe and vulnerable, that was distressing, his breath smelling of alcohol, his delicate throat exposed to the teeth that would soon rip through Remus's gums—hovering with his hand pressed to Remus's back gently and then retreating hastily, hesitantly, when Remus shook it off. "I'm sorry," he said again. He rubbed his temples. "I never... I'm sorry."

Remus shook his head frantically. He felt a swelling-up of his throat. "It's fine. Dog," he whispered. But his throat was clogging and changing. His tongue was too long for his mouth. It was happening. "Dog. Now."

Sirius looked Remus in the eyes incredulously, confused. Something there must have alarmed him, for he leapt back and scrambled against the windowsill, his feet turning to paws and his dark hair spreading. Then he was a dog, pressing again close to Remus, wet nose in Remus's hands. It was a mark of closeness, friendship, protection. In the moment before the transformation started, Remus was grateful for it.

There was no visible moon, but the transformation happened anyway. There was blood, as always, flowers of it that spread along Remus's neck and near the creases in his eyes and then were absorbed by the growing hot form that tore through him—through, like an arrow, through, like something in his veins tearing through his heart—and pushed him up, up onto his legs, rippling along his spine. His hips cracked and shifted. He wondered how this happened so easily for Animagi, so painlessly. It seemed like something came from in him and ate him and spit him out and his mind went fading, fading—dark and dim and with the faint promise of a silver orb somewhere in the sky that called to him, making saltwater rise in his throat. He coughed and his vision again blurred, the fluid shapes moving redly to the center... he hoped Sirius was trustworthy...

There was wet grass, then. Wolf form was always like that. Later Remus remembered very little. Wet grass. Sensations. That was all. Wolves' memories are for scents and trails and territory. The wolf that rose and left the shack smelled all this and wanted to run in it. The night was long and the grass was long. It all shook and blurred. And the hot blood of humans in the distance but the low voice of a dog close and the rain against him—claw marks in a tree, in the side of a straight wall—howls that praised the grace of the night—wind cold and hard that brought the scent of a lake and a forest and filled him with dreams of running quick and hard all night with the muscles that always seemed raw—a dog barking—a dark foggy night—wet grass, cold against the underside of one's paws—salt-the moon—a dog-

Remus rose in a jumble from the wreckage in the middle of a field where the heather was sweet and the mud wet and frigid against his skin. He was covered in blood and rags and a wool blanket, curled in on himself, cold. He closed his eyes and waited for the dizziness to stop. He was trembling still, the muscles in his legs strained and feeble.

The sky was still black, though there was beginning to be gray on the very edge of the horizon. The dog watched him still.

"I'm back," he croaked weakly.

The dog came forward and sat next to him until he was ready to sit up.